Evaluating the Nook Tablet for an Elementary School

In the article, Evaluating the Nook Tablet for an Elementary School, the author basically evaluates the nook and whether it would be a good investment for the elementary school. He felt the cost efficiency wasn’t a great selling point, as the savings gained through purchasing digital books would take a long time to make up for the initial cost of the nooks themselves. He also felt that technology simply for technology’s sake is never a good thing. So, he asked the question, what are the advantages of the nooks tablets. The durability of the books on a tablet was a big advantage. He states, “A digital book doesn’t get tattered.” Also, because Barnes & Noble allows the purchase of one book to be available to any device registered on that account, the books purchased will far outlive the tablets they were purchased on. Another advantage of the nook tablet is its access to the web. This could replace some of their existing netbooks, which were not in good shape. The nook tablets also provide a variety of learning apps that the students could use. A big question that the author addressed was weather the Nook would last. With investing so much money in something like the nook, there is a fear that Barnes & Noble would one day scrap the nook, and all that money invested in digital books would be lost along with the digital books themselves. However, since the Nook books can be accessed on iPads, iPhones, iPod Touch handhelds, and other devices, even if the Nook itself were to become obsolete, the titles could still be accessed through other means. With all of these arguments, the author came to the conclusion that the Nook would in fact be a good investment for the school.

As a future educator I would like to first state that I like the way this author went about evaluating the pros and cons of investing in a large number of nooks. It is important to know the advantages and disadvantages of making such a large purchase. Thinking about the advantages of the Nook over traditional books from every angle is important, because it is important to know what you are investing in, and whether it is a good investment. Based on all of his argument found in this article, I would agree with the author’s conclusion that the Nook would be a good investment for the school he was teaching at. This being said, I think that it is important that each school do their own evaluation of the pros and cons of investing in the Nooks before doing so, as each school has their own needs and reasons for purchasing the Nook.